Message for Mr Davey: Don’t Blow It!

In May, Ed Davey (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) released a draft energy bill which proposes major changes to the energy market, but not in the way that any of us hoped. For example, his bill allows gas plants to produce more carbon dioxide than they do today, until 2045. And it imposes no restrictions at all on coal plants, as long as they undertake that one day in the indeterminate future they will "demonstrate" that carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment could reduce an unspecified quantity of their emissions. CCS has not yet been applied on a commercial scale so we don’t even know that it will have a significant impact on carbon emissions. And yet, Davey claims that the long-term aims of the bill are to stop climate change!So, four members of Climate Rush Bristol made time in their busy work schedules to travel to London on Wednesday the 27th of June to deliver a message to Ed Davey asking him not to blow this opportunity to help prevent catastrophic climate change. We took the delivery to Ed’s doorstep as sadly he couldn’t meet us in person, and dropped off more than forty hankies made by the people of Bristol along with a message from the group. These were made as part of our ‘Craftacular’ at Bristol’s Big Green Week. We took a bicycle trailer, gaily decorated in bunting and ribbons, on a tour around the centre of town. At each stop, we got out our sewing kit, blank handkerchiefs, fabric markers, and pavement chalks. We attracted passers-by aged from 3 to 60-something, many of whom stopped for a few minutes to make a hankie with their own message asking Ed Davey to use his power to tackle climate change. We even got a celebrity signing, as one of our passers-by was Jonathan Porritt (author, and founder of Friends of the Earth and Forum for the Future) who suggested that Davey listen to us rather than George Osborne! With our fun and inclusive approach we showed that ‘ordinary people’ also have strong views on this issue, and that taking action on climate change need not be limited to ‘activists’.